They Were Always Alive To Me

Border's bookstore usually has a 3 for 2 deal, and as I walked up and down the stacked tables, I came across a sad bear. I never heard of Clifford Chase before this book, but I am impressed. He not only makes social commentary, but he does it through the eyes of an awakened teddy bear.

This is endearing for several reasons. Winkie reminds me of my younger days, which constitutes all but the past five years of my life. For most of my childhood I was wholly aware of the idea that my teddy bears were not alive, yet I still kept some hope that when I left the room or the apartment, they were all walking and talking and knew when we were coming back. They put everything back where they were and we never knew better.

Chase manages to critique a number of institutions: from the police all the way to medical practitioners. After switching owners for years, Winkie slowly awakens to the point where he eventually walks and talks, but when a little girl goes missing, he is the one accused of being a mass-bomber and killer. In this process he is shot, hospitalized, and ridiculed. Still, he forces himself to make beeping sounds in order to imitate a pulse (at which point the attending doctor is congratulated for bringing him back from the dead), makes a friend with a lesbian nurse who stitches his wounds, and is put on trial for actions he did not commit.

Winkie is a fun and endearing novel, full of childhood memories, imagination, and a sorrowful realization that many of our policies and officials are filled with holes so deep, that no amount of stuffing will make them complete.

Where, Oh Where, Has My Lovely Shoe Gone?

This week's everyday idiot is special. It is me.

As I left hurriedly out of class the other day in a rush to reach my mother (who was waiting and relaxing in the car parked in the garage), my right sandal strap broke. And I almost fell. Now having not driven to class often, as I take MARTA our local train station, I was fairly discombobulated in terms of direction. I slapped my foot on its way to find the parking garage and quickly learned I needed to raise my leg high in order to avoid falling. I tried to remain inconspicuous and avoided high traffic areas where students would quickly notice my odd gait. Of course in doing so, I made the path to the car more difficult. I asked many people where the parking garage was and entered many buildings looking for shortcuts. Alas, I finally made it to the car, but not before tripping one more time and coming out of the sandal.

You might be thinking: why didn't she just take off the sandal? Well, its downtown Atlanta. Period.

Running to Where You Know Not

In the follow-up to his popular novel The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini presents A Thousand Splendid Suns, a vivid tale expressing the lives of women in Afghanistan.

The story follows two women, Miriam and Laila, and the horrors that eventually constitute their existence. In a war-torn society that was once functional and free, both women find themselves separated from all of the love they once knew, and thrown into lives of submission and fear. Hosseini sincerely writes about the complexities of love and relationships between friends, lovers, and family, and beautifully expresses the pain of lost loved ones and the happiness in finding a new family.

What surprises me most about this novel is not his writing, but the reality of the situations. Between the horrific arranged marriages that both women are thrown into, the deception among their male family members, and the physical and mental abuse by their husbands, I cannot help but feel compassion for all those women on the receiving end of such pain and anger for those needlessly causing it.

After a long and rough introduction between Laila and Miriam, they finally find solace and friendship from their mutual hatred for their husband. After losing her family to a bomb, Laila soon finds herself conceding to a lifetime of cruelty. In an attempt to procure a new and young wife, Miriam's husband saves the girl. It is the need to protect her swollen belly, the brewing pot of her action with Tariq her neighbor and love since she was a young girl, that drives her to such a dim house. And it is this child that brings laughter and love to the women's lives.

After their husband notifies Laila of Tariq's death, she accepts his marriage proposal, hoping to give her child a home. After many years and with a fantastic twist, Tariq emerges and her husband's lies surface. The innocence and love shared between Tariq and Laila are undeniable and Miriam ultimately sacrifices herself for that love, beating her husband to death and freeing them all.

It is the reality of this novel and the sheer sincerity with which Hosseini writes that keeps him at the top of my favorites list.

That's Correct

Patient on the phone: I have insurance.
Patient Representative: Great. What is the name of your insurance?
Patient on the phone: I have United Healthcare.
Patient Representative: Do you know if your medical insurance covers routine exams? Or do you have a separate plan?
Patient on the phone: Yes!
(Awkward silence on both ends)
Patient Representative: ... uh... Yes to your medical insurance covers it or to you have a separate plan?
Patient on the phone: Oh, separate. I'm not sure what it is.

This is the life. Who wouldn't want to encounter this daily?

Jump, Dive and Roll

These are three words that I find befitting as a description for Khaled Hosseini's first novel The Kite Runner-- along with the kites that color the story, the novel itself jumps in and confronts many aspects of human nature. It has been a #1 New York Times Bestseller and it has quickly flown to the top of my favorites list, which is very difficult to do.

The story follows the life of Amir, an Afghani boy that learns about his own demons as well as those of his country. It is very rare that I will read a book and applaud the author--often the story is fascinating, but the voice is not sincere. Hosseini has managed on his first try to encompass the lives of every Afghani that has seen the wars, the ruin, the pain, and the realization of a lost country, in one story. I hesitate to use the word 'try,' as it assumes the author strove to create this, but I doubt it--it comes from a man who has grown up in Afghanistan. The voice of the story is his own. It is the voice we all would have shared if we lived those lives and it is the voice we hear in our tears as we weep for Amir, his family, his friends, and for every innocent person.

It is not a history book, but a great resource for learning history through story. The reader follows Amir from childhood through adulthood and experiences every pain Allah bestows upon him and his loved ones. His crises are not common, no 'someone stole my bubble gum' or 'I couldn't go to prom'--they are about survival, about religion and politics decapitating all one knows as good and safe, and about stealing the happiness of your closest friend.

The story revolves around a haunting winter day when one cowardly act changes the course of many lives. It tests Amir's relationship with the closest friend he ever had, Hassan, and teaches him that in the end, he must take charge of his destiny and most importantly, learn to forgive. Unable to stand up for himself, Hassan always steps in and saves him--yet when Hassan himself is raped by a neighborhood tormentor, Amir hides behind a wall and curses his inability to do anything.

Secrets, regrets, and redemption follow the characters from birth until death, and the understanding that nothing would ever return to normal is forever haunting. In the end, Amir learns that the one person he thinks of as a brother has indeed been so, but is no longer alive. Left is his only son Sohrab, who has been abducted by the very man who raped his father years ago. It is the journey to save his nephew and fix his mistakes that brings him back to his old home. It is where he hopes to make some amends.

Despite prior knowledge of the horrors that plagued Afghanistan for years, Hosseini incorporates a heart-wrenching event into his novel over and over again and reminds me of something I wanted not to exist: rape and the loss of innocence comes in many forms.

Restroom Etiquette

A few weeks ago Idaho Senator Larry Craig's name was all over the news. Why? Apparently he was engaging in lewd conduct in a restroom stall. Now here is the fun part: it was the tapping of his feet that led a police officer to decide Sen. Craig was gay, and that this was a signal in the gay community.

Now, my boyfriend works in a pretty large office building and when he walked into the restroom Tuesday afternoon, his eyes were not pleased to find a grown man standing in front of the mirror with his pants down to his knees. The man then giggles and says "I'm sorry," and my boyfriend proceeds to enter a stall. At this point, the half-unclad man begins to whistle and then tap his feet. We had decided that perhaps the man's pants were not on because he was trying to tuck his shirt in, but even then, pants do not go that far down, nor would one start whistling and tapping and sticking around for as long as he did.

Neither of us are sure what to think of this encounter--is the tapping indeed, just tapping? Or is the media altering our perception and understanding of these actions? Either way, I was hoping that someone in such a professional setting would have enough common sense not to be so "free" in an office restroom.